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West should be applauding Chen

`The time has come for the future decision on Taiwan's status referred to in the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty. "Taking the wishes of the Formosan population into consideration," is what Chen's referendum is all about.'

President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) statement in a telecast to the annual conference of the World Federation of Taiwanese Associations meeting in Tokyo on Saturday should be supported and applauded by the US and Western Europe, as well as by the people of Taiwan itself.

Chen called for a referendum on Taiwan's future and stated that holding a referendum was a basic human right of the Taiwanese that can't be deprived or restricted, saying, "Taiwan's future and destiny can only be decided by the 23 million people living on the island."

Chen said that it needs to be clear that, "with Taiwan and China on each side of the Taiwan Strait, each side is a country." He added, "Our Taiwan is not something that belongs to someone else. Our Taiwan is not someone else's local government. Our Taiwan is not someone else's province."

While these statements are common sense to anyone who supports democracy and human rights, they are bound to raise the ire of the repressive rulers in Beijing, and may lead to misunderstanding by those who don't understand -- or don't want to understand -- where "Taiwan is coming from."

A basic fact that is often overlooked is that Taiwan was not part of the Chinese Civil War in the 1940s. It became an unhappy party to that conflict when the losing side -- Chiang Kai-shek's (蔣介石) KMT -- moved to the island, which had been occupied by the KMT in 1945 on behalf of the Allied Forces after the defeat of Japan.

The contention that Taiwan split from China in 1949 -- made erroneously and all too often by newswires such as Reuters and the Associated Press -- is therefore simply false. It was not part of China in the first place, but officially still under Japanese sovereignty. On the occasion of the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty, Japan formally ceded sovereignty over the island, but its ultimate status was to be the subject of a future decision, "taking the wishes of the Formosan population into consideration."

From the 1950s through the early 1990s, the KMT perpetuated the myth that it was the rightful ruler of all of China, shutting out all opposing views of the native Taiwanese, who wanted their island to become a free, democratic and independent nation and a full and equal member of the international family of nations.

During the same period, China went through a series of upheavals such as the Cultural Revolution and the Tiananmen Square massacre, and -- in response to the KMT's narrow-minded pursuit of "recovery of the mainland" -- increasingly saw "reunification of Taiwan with the motherland" as the last piece of unfinished business in its civil war against Chiang.

The problem with that policy is that for the large majority of the people in Taiwan their island was not part of communist China in the first place, so "unification" is perceived about as welcome as Hitler Germany's occupation of The Netherlands, Poland or Czechoslovakia in the beginning of World War II.

Since the early 1990s, Taiwan became increasingly democratic, first under former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝), who increas-ingly pushed the envelope with the "Taiwanization" of the nation's political system and by increasing the nation's room for maneuvering in the international arena.

In the spring of 2000, the transfer of power to the DPP signaled a new stage in Taiwan's quest for international recogni-tion. Chen moved cautiously, extending olive branch after olive branch in the direction of Beijing. In response, however, Beijing increasingly tightened the noose, refusing to deal with the new government, increasing military pressure on the nation by deploying some 350 missiles along the coast facing Taiwan and increasing its weapons purchases specifically to defend against an attack on the democratic nation.

Against this historical background, the US and Western Europe must take the following steps.

First, affirm that the people of Taiwan have the right to determine their own future under the principle of self-determination as enshrined in the UN Charter.

Second, urge China to renounce the use of force and accept Taiwan as a friendly neighboring state instead of perpetuating the hostility and rivalry dating from the Chinese Civil War fought against the KMT five de-cades ago. In particular, it needs to be emphasized to China that the new Taiwan is not the old rival from the days of the Chinese Civil War, but a new neighbor, which wants to live in peace with all its neighbors, including the big brother across the Strait.

Third, accept Taiwan as a full and equal member of the international family of nations, including the UN.

The time has come for the future decision on Taiwan's status referred to in the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty. "Taking the wishes of the Formosan population into consideration," is what Chen's referendum is all about. Only if that happens, can Taiwan truly "go its own [democratic] way."

Gerrit van der Wees is editor of Taiwan Communique, an international publication dedicated to democracy in Taiwan and full and equal membership of Taiwan in the international community.
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